Explanation:
Scattered debris from a cosmic supernova explosion
lights up the sky
in this gorgeous composited image based on data from the
Hubble Space Telescope.
Cataloged as N49, these glowing filaments of shocked gas
span about
30 light-years in our neighboring galaxy, the
Large Magellanic Cloud.
Light from the original exploding star reached Earth thousands
of years ago, but N49 also marks the location of another
energetic outburst -- an extremely intense
blast of gamma-rays
detected by satellites only twenty-five years ago on
March
5, 1979.
That date was the beginning of an
exciting journey in astrophysics
which led researchers to the understanding of an exotic new class of
stars.
The source of the March 5th Event is now attributed to
a
magnetar - a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star also
born in the ancient stellar explosion which created supernova
remnant N49.
The magnetar hurtles
through the supernova
debris cloud at over 1,200 kilometers
per second.